How to build a door on purpose

Stanford put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. Creative output jumped 60%. No view. No fresh air. Walking did it alone. Nothing else.

Last post: doors delete thoughts. Accident.
This one: doors built on purpose. Tool.
Three doors. That's all.

Door 1. The reset door.
Stuck on a problem? Leave. Walk.
Oppezzo and Schwartz, Stanford, 2014. Treadmill beat the chair. Outdoors wasn't needed. And the boost stayed after people sat back down.
Stuck isn't a knowledge problem. It's a room problem.

Door 2. The exit door.
In 2020 Microsoft built a fake commute into Teams. A ritual button to end the workday.
Because remote work killed the one door everyone had. The drive home.
No door, no ending. Work leaks into the night.

Door 3. The protected door.
The hard one.
Sophie Leroy named it attention residue. Switch tasks and part of the brain stays behind.
Her fix, tested in 2018: before switching, write one line. Where I stopped. What's next.

Bonus. Calendar doors.
Mondays. Birthdays. First day of the month.
Dai, Milkman and Riis called it the fresh start effect. People start goals at these points far more often.
Time has doors too. Use them.